Typically when mailing an object such as a parcel or package, for example, a postal customer or sender purchases stamps to cover the postage for the letters or parcels, etc. The sender must ensure that the postage is sufficient to cover the cost of the item being sent. If the sender has incorrectly weighed the item and provided insufficient postage, the item will be returned, undelivered or the additional cost will be passed on to the recipient.
It is possible for the sender to go to the post office or any delivery company and have the item to be mailed weighed and processed. The sender will then pay the full fee for a single stamp to cover delivery. However, this requires the sender to visit a physical location with its package during the post office's restrictive opening hours.
Currently, the post office has added a pay and print service. To use the pay and print service, the sender pays a postal fee using a credit card online and downloads and prints a unique bar-code for the item to be shipped. The sender enters the size and weight of the item onto the website. However, the pay and print service has multiple drawbacks such as incorrectly weighing the item to be shipped and entering the incorrect information about the item onto the website, to name a few. Furthermore, the sender has to take the time to print the stamp, which may have incorrect information on it, which will cause a delay in its shipping and processing.
Other significant problems with the current mailing system are that several parcels are often missing and packages are not delivered or delivered to the wrong recipient each year. Various schemes exist to mitigate these problems, including specialized letters with embedded RFID technology to trace through the postal and sorting systems, bar-coding and other identifying mechanisms to help either remove systemic failures or provide some way of more easily identifying an item when it is found.